Summary of Contents for American Megatrends Excalibur PCI

Limited Warranty Buyer agrees if this product proves to be defective, that American Megatrends, Inc. is only obligated to replace or refund the purchase price of this product at American Megatrend's discretion according to the terms and conditions on the motherboard warranty card. American Megatrends shall not be liable in tort or contract for any loss or damage, direct, incidental or consequential.

Intel, Pentium, and Overdrive are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. MS-DOS, Xenix, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, and Microsoft are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. SMC is a registered trademark of SMC Corporation. IBM, AT, VGA, PS/2, OS/2, and EGA are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. XT and CGA are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. Fujitsu is a registered trademark of Fujitsu America, Inc.

This manual was written for the OEM to assist in the proper installation and operation of this motherboard. This manual describes the specifications and features of the Excalibur PCI motherboard. It explains how to assemble a system based on the Excalibur PCI motherboard and how to use the AMIBIOS that is specifically designed for this motherboard.

Chapter 1 System Overview The American Megatrends Excalibur PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) baby AT-size PCI ISA motherboard that supports a Pentium® CPU. This motherboard has three PCI Local Bus expansion slots (two can be used for bus mastering PCI adapter cards) and four ISA expansion slots.

PCI is a common I/O component interface. The Excalibur PCI Motherboard conforms to the Intel PCI specifications. The PCI Local Bus Specification is a standard set of interface, architecture, timings, electrical, and physical specifications that permits all PCI Local Bus products to be totally interchangeable.

PCI, Continued PCI Diagram A typical PCI motherboard system block diagram follows. Buffered Reads and Writes The PCI Controller buffers reads and writes between the memory/CPU and PCI peripheral devices. PCI Component Classes PCI components must be one of three classes: bus master, slave, or master/slave combination. Bus Mastering PCI devices can be bus masters, slaves, or a combination of bus master and slave.

Motherboard Frequency The Excalibur PCI motherboard operates at either High or Low speed. High speed is the same as the speed of the CPU mounted on the motherboard. Low speed is approximately the same speed as that of an 8 MHz IBM® AT. Low speed is achieved by emulation.

Chapter 4 Installation Unpacking the Motherboard Chapter 4 Installation Step Action Inspect the cardboard carton for obvious damage. If damaged, call Technical Support at 404-246-8600. Leave the motherboard in its original packing. Perform all unpacking and installation procedures on a ground-connected anti-static mat.

This motherboard contains sensitive electronic components which can be easily damaged by static electricity. Follow the instructions carefully to ensure correct installation and to avoid static damage. Step 1 Set Switches and Jumpers Set all user-configurable jumpers and switches before installing the motherboard in the chassis. There are two user-configurable switches and two jumpers: Multipurpose switch Parallel Port IRQ Select...

Switch position 2 controls the type of caching algorithm used internally by the Pentium CPU. SW1 Switch 3 Reprogram Flash ROM Set SW1 switch 3 ON only when American Megatrends has sent you a floppy disk with a new ROM file to reprogram the Flash EPROM.

The AMIBIOS system password feature and AMIBIOS Power Management feature must be enabled before the Password LED will blink when the correct system password must be entered by the end user. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide Continued J3 Pin Setting...

Step 3 Install the Motherboard The mounting hole pattern on the motherboard is the same as the mounting hole pattern on most Baby AT-size boards. Standoffs and mounting screws are not supplied. Step Wear an anti-static wristband when performing this procedure. Place the chassis on an anti-static mat.

Step 4 Connect the Power Supply, Power Supply Connectors are Keyed The power connectors are keyed to prevent incorrect installation. The keys on the connector must be cut to fit on some power supplies, as shown below. P5 Pinout Chapter 4 Installation Continued Description Power Good (Orange wire)

Step 6 Connect the Mouse Cable The mouse connector (P6) is a ten-pin dual-inline berg. Attach a standard serial cable from the mouse connector to a standard DB9 serial port connector mounted externally on the chassis. Pin 10 should be cut because it is not used. Step 7 Connect Cables When attaching chassis connectors to the motherboard, make sure you connect the correct connector end.

Password LED. The computer enters Sleep Mode immediately when the end user presses this switch. P21 Diag LED P21 is an LED mounted on the motherboard used when manufacturing diagnostic tests are running. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Step 7 Connect Cables, Continued P29 IDE LED P29 is a four-pin berg that can be attached via a cable to an LED that is lit when IDE hard disk drive activity occurs. Pins 1 and 4 are anode. Pins 2 and 3 are cathodes. The LED can be between Pins 1 and 2 or Pins 3 and 4. P27 Turbo LED P27 is a two-pin berg that is attached via a cable to the externally-mounted Turbo LED.

LED power Ground Keyboard lock Ground The front panel LED flashes if the system AMIBIOS Low Power Mode feature is enabled and Pins 1-2 of J4 are shorted. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide Description...

Onboard Serial Ports, Parallel Port, Floppy, and IDE The Excalibur PCI motherboard has two serial ports (P14 and P10), a parallel port (P8), an IDE connector (P15), and a floppy connector (P11) onboard. The serial and parallel port connectors are described below, the IDE connector on page 53 and the floppy connector on page 51.

ISA serial port interface. The connector pinout is shown below. Pin 1 on the bergs is labeled “1". The wire leading to pin 1 on the cable usually has a colored stripe. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide Continued If AMIBIOS...

Step 8 Connect Onboard I/O, Continued Attaching the Serial Port Cables Two serial port cables are supplied with the motherboard. Attach the cables to P14 and P10 and to the external serial port connectors on the chassis as shown below. See the drawing on page 19 for the P14 and P10 location. Chapter 4 Installation...

The motherboard supports up to two 720 KB, 1.44 MB, 2.88 MB 3½" drives and/or 360 KB and 1.2 MB 5¼" floppy drives. The 34-pin ribbon attaches to P11 and the drives. The cable has a small twist between the floppy connectors. The end connector is connected to floppy drive A:. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

The Excalibur PCI Pentium motherboard provides full compatibility with all IBM XT and AT-compatible adapter cards via four ISA (AT-compatible) expansion slots. The Excalibur PCI Pentium motherboard also has three PCI Local Bus expansion slots. A summary of the slots follows.

PCI Local Bus Pinout The first three expansion slots in the Excalibur PCI Pentium motherboard are for PCI Local Bus adapter cards, as shown on the graphic on page 19. The PCI bus master slots are P16 (Slot1) and P17 (Slot2). The PCI slave expansion slot is P18 (Slot3).

Start the Test Plug everything in and turn on the switch. If there are any signs of a problem, turn off the unit immediately. Reinstall the connectors. Call American Megatrends Technical Support at 404-246-8600 if there are problems. AMIBIOS Errors If the system operates normally, a display should appear on the monitor.

System Configuration Verification (compare defined configuration with there hardware actually installed). AMIBIOS Error Reporting The AMIBIOS performs diagnostic when the system is powered up. Error s are reported in one of two ways: Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide If... the error occurs before the a series of beeps sound.

When a problem occurs, freeze the screen by powering on the system and holding a key down, which causes a Keyboard Error message. Copy the BIOS Identification Strings and report this information to American Megatrends Technical Support. Press <F1> to continue.

AMIBIOS Features The AMIBIOS for the American Megatrends Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA motherboard has several features that can be accessed from the keyboard at any time. Keyboard Speed Switching You can increase the processor speed at any time by pressing <Ctrl><Alt><+>. Processor speed can be decreased by pressing <Ctrl><Alt><->.

A New Type of System BIOS Setup Utility American Megatrends has now made available a new type of system BIOS Setup utility. WinBIOS Setup has a graphical user interface that permits mouse access, and is so compact that it can reside on the same ROM as the system BIOS.

Using a Mouse with WinBIOS Setup WinBIOS Setup has a built-in mouse driver and can be accessed by either a serial mouse or PS/2-style mouses. WinBIOS Setup supports Microsoft-Compatible serial mouses and all PS/2-type mouses. The mouse click functions are: single click to change or select both global and current fields and double clock to perform an operation in the selected field.

Section 3 beginning on page 79, has two icons that control AMIBIOS security features, and Default described in Section4 beginning on page 83, this section has three icons that permit you to select a group of settings for all AMIBIOS WinBIOS Setup options. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

The Standard Setup screen follows. Date, Day and Time Configuration Select the Standard option. Select the Date and Time icon. The current values for each category are displayed. Enter new values through the keyboard. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Standard Setup Hard Disk C: Type Hard Disk D: Type Select one of these hard disk drive icons to configure the drive named in the option. A scrollable screen that lists all valid disk drive types is displayed. Select the correct type and press <Enter>. If the hard disk drive is an IDE drive, select Detect C: or Detect D: from the Utility section of the WinBIOS Setup main menu to have AMIBIOS automatically detect the IDE drive parameters and report them to this screen.

When this option is enabled, the BIOS memory test is performed on all system memory. When this option is disabled, the memory test is done only on the first 1 MB of system memory. The settings are Enabled or Disabled. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Advanced Setup, Continued Memory Test Tick Sound This option enables (turns on) or disables (turns off) the ticking sound during the memory test. The settings are Enabled or Disabled. Memory Parity Error Checking This option enables or disables parity error checking for system RAM. The settings are Enabled (all system RAM parity is checked) or Disabled (parity is checked only on the first 1 MB of system RAM).

The settings are Internal, Disabled, or Both. External Cache Mode This option selects the type of caching algorithm used by AMIBIOS and the computer for L2 (external) secondary cache memory. The settings are Wr-Thru or Wr-Back. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Advanced Setup, Continued Password Checking This option enables the password check option every time the system boots or the end user runs Setup. If Always is chosen, a user password prompt appears every time the computer is turned on. If Setup is chosen, the password prompt appears if WinBIOS is executed.

This option must be set to Enabled if the VGA card installed in the system requires a frame buffer. This option sets the size of the VGA frame buffer. The settings are Disabled, 1 MB, 2 MB, or 4 MB. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Chipset Setup, Continued ISA VGA Frame Buf. Base Addr This option automatically sets the base address (or starting point) of the ISA VGA frame buffer according to the size of the VGA frame buffer. ISA IRQ 9 At least one IRQ must be free for each PCI Card in the system. If the PCI Card includes a multifunction device, at least two or more IRQs must be free.

PCI bus. The settings are Free or Used. The Optimal and Power-On defaults are Free. PCI VGA Palette Snooping This option must be set to Enabled if any ISA adapter card installed in the system requires VGA palette snooping. The settings are Enabled or Disabled. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Power Management Setup The WinBIOS Setup options described in this section are selected by choosing the appropriate high-level icon from the Power Mgmt Setup screen. Power Mgmt Setup is selected from the Setup section on the WinBIOS Setup main menu (see page 59). All displayed icons are described in this section, although the screen display is often all you need to understand how to set the option.

If Manual is selected, the settings chosen by the end user in Peripheral Setup apply. AMIBIOS reports any I/O conflicts after displaying the BIOS Configuration Summary Screen, but only if Manual is chosen. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide the ports are and the two onboard configured as...

Peripheral Setup, Continued On-Board Floppy Drive This option enables the use of the floppy drive controller on the motherboard (if installed). The settings are Enabled or Disabled. On-Board IDE Drive This option enables the use of the IDE controller on the motherboard (if installed). The settings are Enabled or Disabled.

Peripheral Setup, Continued PCI IDE Prefetch Mode Enabling this option enables this performance enhancement feature on the onboard PCI IDE. IDE data prefetch, when enabled, saves valuable CPU time by taking the data from the IDE drive ahead of the CPU request. The settings are Enabled or Disabled.

Enter a 1 – 6 character password. The password does not appear on the screen when typed. Make sure you write it down. If you forget it, you must drain CMOS RAM and reconfigure the system. If You Do Not Want to Use a Password Just press <Enter> when the password prompt appears. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

Changing a Password Select the Password icon from the Security section of the WinBIOS Setup main menu. Enter the password and press <Enter>. The screen does not display the characters entered. After the new password is entered, retype the new password as prompted and press <Enter>.

WinBIOS Setup main menu. The Fail-Safe settings provide far from optimal system performance, but are the most stable settings. Use this option as a diagnostic aid if the system is behaving erratically. Excalibur PCI Pentium ISA Motherboard User's Guide...

• run the AMIFlash utility. Programming Flash from System Boot Using the floppy disk with the new BIOS file, press and hold down <Ctrl> <Home> to reprogram the Excalibur PCI Pentium motherboard Flash EPROM-based AMIBIOS before DOS boots. Using AMIFlash AMIFlash is a DOS utility that is executed from the DOS command line.

The AMIFlash portion of Flash EPROM is not programmed. S701P.ROM S701P.ROM resides on a floppy disk and contains the updated main BIOS code. American Megatrends will provide this file when the AMIBIOS for the Excalibur PCI Pentium motherboard must be updated.

Reprogramming from System Boot, Beep Codes During normal operation, the Flash utility produces a series of beeps to: • signify completion of a step (as shown on the previous page), or to • signal an error. Error beeps are arranged in a coded sequence and have different meanings depending on when they occur. The following list describes the error beep codes and when they can occur.

AMIFlash Starting AMIFlash Type AMIFlash and press <Enter> at the DOS prompt. AMIFlash will prompt for the filename. Type S701P.ROM and press <Enter>. Pressing <Esc> exits AMIFlash any time before Flash EPROM reprogramming begins. General Operation If Flash EPROM is present, AMIFlash asks if you want to save the existing BIOS file. If you choose to save the BIOS, enter the filename where the existing BIOS will be saved.